iJewish is a good way to practice and have fun over the summer

I have an iPhone stuffed to the guffilte gills with audio for the Saturday morning prayers for three synagogues, siddur pages for two or three, information about the prayers, photos of ritual objects and biblical dress, tents and musical instruments, and GAMES.  Did I neglect to mention the games??

All of the Jewish publishers havemany apps and programs, but Behrman house has the best.  Here are the iPhone and iPad games for students, and I have them all.  Scroll through the adult stuff and the fun ones will appear near bottom.

This year I found a new food-sorting game for Passover, with a truck theme.  And an entire haggadah (with sounds and sound effects) for the iPad.  Add Little Scribes and Mash Passover for the little ones.  There's also a Mitzvah Match app which kids of many ages may enjoy.

Looking for something to teach basic Hebrew and simple prayers?  Start with these from Behrman House.  They also have full versions for the computer.

Babaganewz has great online resources, offline and online games for Jewish kids from the tweens until high school, but I haven't yet seen anything there for smart phones.They also have craft and recipe ideas and a focus on values.

TorahAura has a great selection of non-technological Jewish fun activities for kids, in case you decide that you need to see your own phone or computer even while the kids are awake.

Morim has lots of online practice for Torah stories and simple Hebrew vocabulary, and the kids seem to like the activities.

Davka has some fun stuff as well:

Alef Bet Schoolhouse for iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad

Alef Bet Schoolhouse teaches the Hebrew alphabet with with sound, color, animation and fun!

A golden yad?

My sixth graders had an interesting discussion recently about why the Torah scoll's yad is silver rather than gold. We talked about beautifying a mitzvah and looked at some of the other "fancy" ritual objects around us.  Would we want a gold yad though? Great arguments for an against.  Let's have some discussion here.  Would a gold yad be practical? Would it be preferable to a silver yad? Why or why not?  Think it through in the comments and I'll tell you what my students decided at the end of the week.

Check out my Google Plus profile!

Hi all,

Are you on G+? I've got a new google plus profile.  Click here to view it, or add me into one of your circles.

Betsy

my google plus profile as of this morning

Photos from a Student's Bat Mitzvah in Israel

One of my students had the fabulous opportunity to become Bat Mitzvah in Jerusalem, at Robinson's Arch. I taught her the prayers and her Torah reading here, and worked with her on her speech, but then they took it on the road/plane. I also helped her mom design the siddur that she used, and choose some of the English readings.

Audio file for weekday Torah service (Reform)

Just got my son to sit record the Shabbat melodies (the ones you're familiar with!) for the Reform version (from Mishkan T'filah) of the weekday Torah service.  Enjoy!

Click here to listen or download.